Insider's Guide to Shanghai

IN TERMS OF ambition, no other Asian hub touches Shanghai. With bragging rights as China's largest city and a skyline—including the world's highest hotel lobby, the Park Hyatt's on the 87th floor—evoking Dubai, the city is challenging Hong Kong and Tokyo as the financial capital of the East.

Yet there's no paving over its darker roots—which is just as well. Once a sleepy village along the Huangpu River, the opium trade ripped open...